Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Some have called it childish, immature, and even
vulgar. The rest of the online world
calls it over 11 million views on YouTube and one of the more successful and
hilarious viral video campaigns to occur in this generation. Kmart’s most recent ad, “Ship My Pants” is
focused around a play on words where “ship” sounds like a much more inappropriate
word. It’s a quick paced ad about Kmart’s
online free shipping with some childish sleight of mouth that is guaranteed to
make any 12 year old boy crack up.

But the
thing is that this ad didn't just hit the funny bone of middle school students. It has lit up the social media world, taking
off from its reveal on April 10th to spiral into a massive viral
campaign. It has been shared over 18,000
times on Facebook and has received over 53,000 “likes” on the YouTube video (as
compared to the 2,000+ “dislikes”).
Articles on the controversial ad have appeared CNN, ABC, and USA Today
among many other well-read sites.
Immature humor or not, the fact is this ad got people laughing and, more
importantly, got people talking.

Kmart
took a big risk by doing such an out-of-character ad. No matter how funny or clever, an ad that
breaches the accepted image of a company can have a serious negative
impact. A 30 second dirty word joke is
quite a step out of the family friendly style that Kmart has been known for,
and they have certainly lost some fans from it.
However, the good greatly outweighs the bad here. The risk certainly paid off, showing two
things: that sometimes taking that leap towards edgy and controversial can be
exactly the right move, and that one should never underestimate the simplicity
and strength of a bathroom humor joke.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Propulsion’s first TV spots were produced
using a clunky Avid digital work station. Avid systems tended to be slow
as they required constant rendering.

NOW:

Propulsion uses Final Cut Pro and
After Effects. These programs have tons of features and a simpler to use format which gets spots done much quicker. It also can process a video at considerably faster speeds and
allows us to use more transitions.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Up until the mid 90’s, radio
commercials were produced using an analog multi-track. A typical 60
second radio spot with more than one music track and multiple SFX/Vocal effects
might take several hours to finish.

NOW:

Producers use Pro Tools. Radio spots are
created digitally, much like a word processor. This cuts the average
production time to minutes instead of hours.